NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Sunita Williams are set to return to Earth after an extended nine-month mission on the International Space Station (ISS). Their prolonged stay was due to technical difficulties with the spacecraft originally intended to bring them back.
Williams and Wilmore, who journeyed to the ISS as part of a planned mission, found themselves stranded when their return vehicle experienced mechanical issues. After months of waiting, their ordeal concluded with the successful docking of the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft, carrying the Crew-10 astronauts, at the ISS.
Joyful photos of Sunita Williams go viral
Sunita Williams was visibly overjoyed at the arrival of the new crew. She greeted them with warm embraces, posed for photos, danced, and celebrated the long-awaited moment. Videos of these heartfelt interactions have since gone viral across social media platforms.
Late last week, SpaceX and NASA launched a mission to retrieve Williams and Wilmore from the ISS, where they had been stranded for nine months. The launch occurred at 7:03 ET, with a Falcon 9 rocket carrying a Dragon spacecraft as part of the Crew-10 mission.
Previously, on Sunday, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk announced the docking of another SpaceX Dragon spacecraft with the ISS. This spacecraft carried NASA astronauts Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers, JAXA astronaut Takuya Onishi, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Kirill Peskov. Musk shared the update on X, stating, “SpaceX Dragon docks with Space Station.”
NASA confirmed in a statement that the astronauts arrived at the ISS at 12:04 a.m. EDT on Sunday, with the station positioned approximately 260 statute miles above the Atlantic Ocean. The Crew-10 team will join the Expedition 72 crew, which includes NASA astronauts Nick Hague, Don Pettit, Sunita Williams, and Butch Wilmore, along with Roscosmos cosmonauts Aleksandr Gorbunov, Alexey Ovchinin, and Ivan Vagner. According to NASA, the station’s crew will temporarily increase to 11 members before the Crew-9 team—Hague, Williams, Wilmore, and Gorbunov—returns to Earth following a handover period.